Python’s file transfer protocol (FTP) library is used to parse weather station data from the publicly available automated surface observing system (ASOS) from the U.S.A.’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Several programmatic tools available in Python are used to automate the parsing of weather data, as well as visualizing the resulting data.
Read MoreThe NEO-6 is a miniature GPS module designed by u-blox to receive updates from up to 22 satellite on 50 different channels that use trilateration to approximate fixed position of a receiver device every second (or less, for some modules). The particular module used in this tutorial, the NEO-6M, is capable of updating its position every second and communicates with an Arduino board using UART serial communication. The NEO-6M uses the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) protocol which provides temporal and geolocation information such as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), latitude, longitude, altitude, and approximate course speed. The NEO-6M and Arduino board will also be paired with an SD module to create a portable logger that acts as a retrievable GPS tracker.
Read MoreIn this tutorial series, Python’s Basemap toolkit and several other libraries are utilized to explore the publicly-available Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES-16). In this first entry, the following will be introduced: acquisition of satellite data, understanding of satellite data files, mapping of geographic information in Python, and plotting satellite land surface temperature (LST) on a map.
Read MoreCalculating latitude and longitude from a GOES-R L1b data file. The GOES-R L1b radiance files contain radiance data and geometry scan information in radians. This information is not enough to plot geographic radiance data right from the file, however, after some geometric manipulation harnessing satellite position and ellipsoid parameters, we can derive latitude and longitude values from the one-dimensional scan angles and plot our data in projected formats familiar to many geographic information tools.
Read MoreGeographic information systems (GIS) are powerful tools used by climatologists, health organizations, defense agencies, real-estate companies, and nearly all professions that rely on location-based data. Geographic data is often very cumbersome to analyze traditionally, which is why visualization tools are essential. Depending on the size and complexity of the data, several robust GIS softwares exist on the market from open-source (free) to paid subscriptions. Each software has its strengths and weaknesses, so depending on the application one software may be more effective than another. A few of the leading softwares are: GE Smallworld, Google Earth Pro, AutoCAD Map 3D, and Maptitude. QGIS is an open-source competitor to ArcGIS, which is arguably the industry leader in the GIS market, so for financial and ease-of-application reasons, QGIS is employed here. I will also cover four scales of geographic analysis: one at the city level (NYC), one at the state level (Washington State), one at the country level (U.S.A.), and one at the world level. The goal is to demonstrate the power and breadth of geographic information systems at any scale.
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